When Portland Police Chief James Craig announced at a June 28 press conference that he was leaving the city to become Cincinnati's chief, he took a moment to list what he considered to be the highlights of his two-year tenure. In addition to lauding the police department's senior lead officers and work with the youth community, he specifically celebrated one "phenomenal" employee whom he credited with "changing the fabric of our most challenging neighborhoods."

He was talking about Trish McAllister, whom he hired last year to serve as Portland's (and Maine's) first-ever neighborhood prosecutor — a city attorney who deals only with civil violations such as public urination, aggressive panhandling, trash dumping, and disorderly houses (a/k/a that apartment building next door whose tenants are always throwing loud parties). She reports to the police chief, as opposed to elected District Attorney Stephanie Anderson (whose office deals with Cumberland County's criminal cases).

Craig considers this a boon: "The key is, she's in the building," he says, pointing out that McAllister attends police meetings to teach officers how to deal with nuisance violations. Craig adds that while there was some resistance from the district attorney's office at first, now there is "overwhelming support" from that entity.

Deputy District Attorney Meg Elam echoes that claim. McAllister is "a complementary presence," Elam says, beefing up city ordinances and offering options in "some situations that didn't warrant criminal prosecution . . . but are still troublesome." The neighborhood prosecutor position, she says, wasn't designed to prosecute criminal violations of state law, but adds a collaborative element to fighting what Elam calls "neighborhood trouble spots" — which heat up, incidentally, during the summertime.

The job was funded by a federal grant through July 1; that the city council made her position permanent in this year's budget is further testament to McAllister's successes.

"I think there's very few positions that have had such a positive influence in such a short period of time," says Ed Suslovic, District 3 city councilor and a member of the public safety committee who has worked closely with McAllister.

There's a theory behind the neighborhood prosecutor's work: "Broken Windows," a philosophy developed by criminologists George Kelling and James Wilson in the early 1980s. The theory basically states that people are more likely to commit crimes in neighborhoods that look run-down or uncared for. Which is to say that if no one gives a shit about this place (as evidenced by this litter, that graffiti, this party house, that broken window), why not perpetuate the cycle by adding to the disorder. Nuisance begets nuisance.

"[A]t the community level, disorder and crime are usually inextricably linked, in a kind of developmental sequence," Kelling and Wilson wrote in their seminal 1982 Atlantic article, which introduced the theory to the public. "Social psychologists and police officers tend to agree that if a window in a building is broken and is left unrepaired, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken . . . [O]ne unrepaired broken window is a signal that no one cares, and so breaking more windows costs nothing."

Too soon That's it? That's the budget that was supposed to transform Maine into — depending on your political orientation — either a business-friendly, job-creating, profit-making paradise of free-market capitalism — or an environmental wasteland in which impoverished workers seek shelter while being urinated on by corporate swine?

Protect teachers' pensions Our governor proposes more money for K-12 education, no cuts in funding for higher education, and increased funding for Medicaid. Good for almost everyone. He also promises to lower the personal state income tax for upper-income earners, and to eliminate the estate tax. Better for the already fortunate.

I can't recall “I can think of no single measure that would do more to strengthen the credibility of state government than . . . the institution of recall.”

The quiet man Governor Paul LePage has, perhaps unexpectedly, refrained from loudly saying stupid things over the past month or so, since GOP legislators confronted him and told him he was a problem child.

Break time Summer's here, and everybody needs a break. Even Governor Paul LePage seems to be taking a holiday from the hard work of keeping his mouth shut in public.

Chafee’s number This week, we continue with a running feature, the Gubernatorial Scorecard. Every so often, we'll rate Lincoln Chafee from 1 to 10 on both the politics and substance of his most recent maneuverings.

Museum dreams This week, we're joining a guided tour of the Maine Museum of Political Paleontology. A docent is explaining to a group of schoolchildren what's happening in a scene depicting cave people trying to register to vote.

ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE | July 24, 2014 When three theater companies, all within a one-hour drive of Portland, choose to present the same Shakespeare play on overlapping dates, you have to wonder what about that particular show resonates with this particular moment.

CHECKING IN: THE NEW GUARD AND THE WRITER'S HOTEL | July 11, 2014 Former Mainer Shanna McNair started The New Guard, an independent, multi-genre literary review, in order to exalt the writer, no matter if that writer was well-established or just starting out.

NO TAR SANDS | July 10, 2014 “People’s feelings are clear...they don’t want to be known as the tar sands capitol of the United States."